


Helios

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [24]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Tattoos, mentions ihab rahal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26089840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: Those things are permanent, you know.
Series: Tender Mercies [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Helios

**Author's Note:**

> spans across time, good luck

In 2002 he walks into a tattoo shop with a fake ID and a sketch of the sun as if it were made from stained glass, little triangles of yellow and orange and red, styled after the faded star on his father’s shoulder. Battista is half-feral and fifteen and bored, rebelling against his parents in any way he can– stealing, partying, honeying his words and laying traps and living. No needle touches his skin; he doesn’t even make it until the ink is fully traced before he feels ill at the touch of a stranger on his collarbone, and he makes his excuses and then a swift exit. The sketch, ripped out of his notebook, sits accusingly on his desk for years as he tells himself he will eventually work up the nerve to go back someday, let the needle settle ink into his skin over his heart. He can’t recall when he lost it, exactly; a little before his father died, if he had to guess. Perhaps just after. All he remembers is that the sketch was gone when he went to pack his things to leave for basic training, and he told himself it was for the best. 

There are rules he has to follow, after that. No distinct markings, no photos, no tattoos. In 2004 he leaves, and two years later he becomes a ghost, signs his life and his personhood away to a cause he doesn’t believe in, a job he’s never been better at, and all the goddamn rules that come with. He thinks of the sun, sometimes, sketches it absently on late nights by low lamplight in the crowded barracks, and finds that he’s never satisfied with the way it looks anymore. Too many pieces, too few, too sharp, too nouveau, too… familiar. 

Too distinct. 

Nothing the enemy can use to identify you, they say. He thinks about his father, the old ink on his shoulder, how it had looked on his lifeless and waxen skin, bloated and then sagging from the time spent in the river. He thinks about recognizing him because of those familiar lines, about staring into the bloody mass that had replaced his face only to see nothing familiar, and he thinks about the strangled noise his mother had made behind him when she saw the body. Bettino Tahan forgoes tattoos altogether. 

The only things distinct about him are the scars he collects, a smattering of little things on his arms, his hands, his face. Cuts from hits to the face, from falling, from shrapnel, things that leave behind the memory of slick pain as he took tweezers to the debris, and the neat little pale lines that gather like freckles from the sun. The slice from navel to rib cage on his left side, the faint impression of how cold the blood loss had left him, how wide eyed and pale one Private Rahal had looked when he pressed shaking hands to the oozing wound. And at the very end, the bullet to the arm that he spent an hour digging out with his fingers, cursing himself and everyone alive and God as well for the things he has lost, and the ugly hole that leaves behind.

He goes home. The thought of getting a tattoo re-enters his mind, the sun haunts him. He switches it up– sketches a moon, a wolf, a snake eating its own tail, but none of them feel right. He thinks perhaps he is too old to get one now, sees no purpose in it, in making his body into another one of his canvasses. 

The damn things are just another way to identify him, a dark haired man wearing sunglasses, a Marchioni capodecina, a unique tattoo. Another way to identify him when the cops eventually have to pull his sorry carcass from the river too, to solve the mystery of his life and of his death. The idea of his body sitting in the river and then sitting in the morgue for weeks is enough to make him feel nauseous, it digs its claws into his brain and doesn’t let him go. He wonders if he would even be allowed to be buried by his parents at that point, if anyone would try. 

He tells himself he’s glad he doesn’t have anyone that cares enough to ID him if he ends up like his father. The one night stands aren’t going to call, they’re not going to cry and come in to trace their fingers along the jagged six inches of scarring that nearly ended his life in 2011. His medical records are classified, the Col Moschin would prefer it if he died, and the Marchioni could put a bullet in him themselves when he outlives his usefulness, or if he pulls too hard at the collar around his neck. And he doubts very much it would matter to them anything other than pride if he bit it, listless and distant as he is on the best of days– and finally, it stands a pretty fair chance that Ihab Rahal, Caito soldato, of all people could be the one to put him in the ground. 

The kiss of cold steel. The long wait to be buried. Being unknown. He thinks about it all the time.


End file.
